Israel and Humanity - The Sabbath in history
§ 3.
THE SABBATH IN HISTORY.
The ease with which the Romans, without any intention to renounce their pagan rites, adopted the Jewish Sabbath, is an indisputable fact. The rabbinic law concerning the duties of proselytes of the gate, that is to say Noachide, is certainly much in this observation of Sabbath rest. It should be pointed out that, alone among all the Jewish holidays, the Sabbath has significance and universal. It is not because of a commemoration of the exodus from Egypt, Agricultural solemnity of a first year as Remembrance Day or fasting in atonement for the transgressions of the Law as Atonement, but a profession of faith in the creation of the world or, rather, the divine origin of things. Thus it is understood that because of this general sense that the Sabbath was more or less rigorously imposed the simple Noachide. The need, the morality of the weekly rest were also naturally extend the practice to make all men. This is probably due to the moral character that Sabbath observance is only one among all the commandments are purely religious, a criminal sanction body, for, as was rightly pointed out, the transgression of the rest need to be considered an attack against human life. [1] Another reason for the popularity of the Sabbath in the Roman Empire, it is likely that this observance was not without precedent in pagan antiquity. If the division was originally known weekly in Rome, it now seems established, critics say, it existed among the Babylonians, which probably explains the origin of the word Chaldean Sabbath. In a verse of Hesiod and Linus we read: "The seventh day is a sacred in him all things were completed. The seventh day is fine, it is the origin of all things, it is the first and last, it is perfect and accomplished. " It is true that these verses are regarded as an interpolation of the Hellenistic Jews, but even if they are to be held apocryphal, at least they show that the authors have included only the mindset of the pagan world would welcome.
Some modern critics have claimed that many verses from the beginning of the second chapter of Genesis are far from proving that the institution of the Sabbath predated Moses, for we find no other reference in any subsequent history up the advent of the great legislator. But facts and phrases in large numbers show that when the Sabbath appeared at the time of Moses, it is not the way to an entirely new institution. The Bible would she say: "Remember the Sabbath day to sanctify it" if he had not been known and even seen before? Similarly, the Hebrews would not go voluntarily refrained from gathering manna on that day by taking each day the double rations, they had previously learned to distinguish this day from all others. Doctors also do they teach it to Mara that the Sabbath commandment and the judicial laws were passed on to Israel in a definitive manner, but that the Hebrews had some knowledge of the first during their stay in Egypt.
Scholars who see a sabbatical observance exclusively Jewish precept, which consequently proselytes of justice would be subject alone, argue that the reason given by Exodus to celebrate the seventh day is the remembrance of the deliverance Egypt. The Sabbath was therefore not the universal precept of nature and does not relate in the Noachide. But it is greatly mistaken to believe that the Scripture motivates the commandment [2] of the Sabbath. The statement it makes, in this place, the exodus from Egypt is a call to obedience and not a Jewish intrinsic reason for the institution. This is so true that it is repeated on many other precepts that have no relation to the act in question and that it is sometimes referred to demand fidelity to all the law in general.
The Sabbath observance by Gentiles, we find undeniable traces in history, is therefore not in contradiction with Scripture, at least for those who, without embracing the whole Mosaic system were converted to the God of Israel could have done it elsewhere otherwise subject to any special legislation from the Rabbis.
